Editorial: Monday briefing

Posted: February 24, 2013 - 5:37pm

AGN Editorial

All a twitter no more

According to www.market watch.com, the most popular tweet by Pope Benedict XVI was his first: “Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart.” That was the first tweet from the pope’s twitter account in December — @Pontifex. It was retweeted more than 65,000 times. It was reported last week the pope’s Twitter account will be history once he retires. Now, we don’t even pretend to believe the pope was actually authoring his own tweets (and it is a safe bet most famous people are not), but the pope was a good follow — and we never thought we’d write this, but the pope will be missed throughout the world of social media.

Every picture tells a story

Amarillo motorists who run red lights and wonder why red-light cameras only take pictures of the back end of their law-violating vehicles — the mystery is solved.

Red-light cameras are restricted by state law to photographing only the rear of a vehicle. Part of the reason — privacy. Let’s assume a motorist is traveling with a person he or she might have a difficult time explaining the presence of to a spouse or significant other. The cost of a red-light camera ticket might be then be the least of a motorist’s worries. Besides, the owner of the vehicle has to be held responsible for how that vehicle is used.

Obviously, there are exceptions, such as a stolen vehicle. However, government can hold homeowners responsible for the condition of their property even if the property owner resides in another state — for example, owner of a rental home. Why not vehicles?

Pinned?

Conservatives shouldn’t be that upset with World Wrestling Entertainment and two of its newest supposed villains — the so-called Tea Party-inspired Jack Swagger and his manager Zeb Colter, who recently made a splash, of sorts, with their in-ring shtick of berating immigrants and asking what is wrong with America.

Let’s put this into perspective. This is WWE, which long ago gave up the fight of trying to protect its authenticity — and has actually gotten bigger than ever since.

Pro rasslin’ has long made a living with outlandish, and sometimes humorous, characters. We’ll throw Swagger and Colter into those categories.

Besides, this is not the first time WWE has created such characters that borrowed from racial and political stereotypes. Fans recall the recent African-American tag team of Cryme Tyme and old-school grappler Irwin R. Schyster (I.R.S.). Lighten up; it’s pro wrestling.